Quilt defines its own brand of psychedelic folk-rock

Quilt has received strong critical notices and much louder buzz, in part thanks to their album “Held in Splendor” which released in January.

By Chad BerndtsonFor The Patriot Ledger

The Red Sox may be floundering, but there’s been an exceptional hot streak lately from Boston-area indie rockers breaking out nationally. Include in that list psychedelic folk-rockers Quilt, who have one of the better albums of 2014 with “Held in Splendor” and a live show that gets better and deeper every tour.

“We’ve played about 85 shows since January,” said guitarist and singer Anna Fox Rochinski, rattling off a list of highlights that includes a show in Hamburg, Germany, under a train platform that concluded with 20 minutes of “loose and gnarly” improvisation, and days and nights spent everywhere from the desert in Texas to clubs in Moscow.

It hasn’t all been roses – Quilt’s tour van was totaled following a crash in March – but on top of it all, Rochinski said, the band’s “made about one million new friends.” Their next local show is Friday, an opening slot for Dean Wareham at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, and they’re slated to return in the fall after a European tour – no doubt to ever-bigger crowds.

Rochinski, who hails from Brookline, is the daughter of jazz guitarist and longtime Berklee College of Music professor Steve Rochinski. She started playing guitar in her early teens and became involved with the scene around Jamaica Plain’s Whitehaus Family Record, the label and a community of artists and musicians that over the past decade became known for DIY shows ranging from poetry slams to highly experimental music.

It was through that scene she met guitarist/singer Shane Butler, launching Quilt in 2008 when they both attended Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and started playing shows together, filling out as a trio with drummer Taylor McVay. Drummer John Andrews, originally from Pennsylvania, replaced McVay in 2011, and last year came bassist and Vermont native Keven Lareau, solidifying the current Quilt lineup.

Over the past few years, Quilt has been several times to the influential South by Southwest music festival and toured with indie buzz acts like The Fresh & Onlys. But the past 12 months especially have brought strong critical notices and much louder buzz, in part thanks to the mesmerizing “Held in Splendor,” which released on Mexican Summer in January.

“I think the album is a lot more pruned and crafted than the last record, (2011’s "Quilt"),” Rochinski said. “The parts where we get loose feel a lot more mature. The folk songs are really strong because we let ourselves bring in finished songs that didn’t need much more work, but the songs are a true collaboration between all of us.”

“Held in Splendor” had an extra boost from producer Jarvis Taveniere, a member of Brooklyn folk-rockers Woods.

“He challenged us to play harder and be weirder while still remaining polished and professional,” Rochinski said. “I think we’re continuously learning about that balance, it’s like an eternal project.”

Quilt and Woods are both bands that have been tagged “psychedelic” thanks to the dreamier corners of their respective sounds. Rochinski notes how promiscuously that term is used these days, especially among descriptions of indie rockers, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“I suppose we have little choice but to readily embrace it as a term that’s come into being on its own,” she said. “Which is to say, maybe we can work with it, mold it, rather than adhere blindly to the rules and regulations set by the past.”

Genre fusion being what it is right now, the use of the term isn’t surprising given how loosely it’s defined.

“You have to be a real weirdo to keep things interesting right now,” Rochinski said. “There is so much boring music. I guess ‘psychedelia’ is beginning to creep into a lot of different realism and spread out like a root system, alongside the mashing of genres that happening right now. I mean, Kid Rock is a country artist now. Sampling is more mainstream than ever. Beyonce is covering Alanis Morrissette. When country and hip-hop cross paths – which they are – you know something’s up. To me, that’s truly psychedelic.”

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